March 19, 2015 By Debra WoodsYou’ve created family trees in FamilySearch and you have one in Ancestry.com. Now you want coordinate both trees so that you can exchange details between the two trees. How do you keep them both synchronized?

An Example from my Own TreesI import my four generations into Ancestry. My paternal great grandfather, Harry Woods, has 14 Hints. I review these possible matches, and one of them is New Hampshire, Marriage Records Index, 1637-1947. I can see that it’s a match for my great grandparents. There is a bit of information in this record that I don’t already have – which is the city in New Hampshire where the marriage took place. I attach the source record to Harry’s profile, check the box next to the city name, and accept it to modify his profile. This adds the source record and modifies the records of both Harry Woods and his wife Alice.

Now, the Ancestry records for Harry and Alice are different from the FamilySearch records for these two individuals.Now I want to synchronize the information between the two programs. I click on the little FamilySearch tree icon and a drop-down menu appears with several options:

First, I try Compare person on FamilySearch. This screen appears:

Wow! This makes it easy to move information between the two programs! Uh-oh! Before I see the bit of information I want to transfer, this is the message I find:

Maybe by the time you read this article this function will be in place. But today, for me, the alternative is just a few extra keystrokes.I go back one screen and this time I click on the FamilySearch tree icon and select View this person on FamilySearch:

This opens a new tab in my browser in my FamilySearch profile page for Harry Woods. I scroll down to Family Members and select Edit Couple.

The couple information is displayed, and I click on the event in question,

and select Edit from the options in the upper right corner of the event box:

This opens an editable event box where I go to the Place field and add the city name.

I start typing in Lisbon, and some options pop-up and I select the correct city, county, state, nation option from the list. Then I type in the source in the Reason This Information is Correct box. Then I click on Save.

It does take a few extra keystrokes, but it’s nice that I’m able to go directly to the needed person record in FamilySearch from his Ancestry record. And eventually relationship records will be available for comparison and synchronization on the Compare Person on FamilySearch screen where we will be able to just check a box and click Save!